Brother, can you spare a dime?

Ok, file this one under just plain odd. Our illustrious provincial government thought of a 'great way' to divert liquor bottles from the landfill. They peeled some bananas, knocked their heads together, ooked a little and came up with this.

From now on, when you buy any alcohol from an LCBO store (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) you'll be paying a deposit on the bottle. When said bottle has been drained finished, you can return it to The Beer Store (yes, that's really the name of the store that sells beer) and get your money back. It seems odd to me to buy alcohol from one place just to return it to another.

Now is it just me that sees a problem with this?

For any bottle that's returned you can get between $.10 and $.20 back and the government is touting it like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. To me it just looks like you're "robbing Peter to pay Paul". Who comes out ahead? You certainly aren't making any money as the government claims you are, and really, how many of us would truly go out of our way to take the bottle back for the money? Yes, I can see people taking it back because they're serious about recycling, but for the money, no.

As mentioned in the article, the program is having an unexpected boon. Apparently in certain areas of Toronto, the homeless are going through people's 'blue boxes', taking the bottles out and returning them for the cash.

Personally I think it would be far better and get more people involved, if the return of empty bottles garnered a percentage of the bottle returned. For example, if you returned an empty bottle of wine, you should get X percent (for sake of argument call it 10%) of the cost of buying that bottle of alcohol...or at least get X percent off the cost of the next bottle. At least it would make people more discerning in what bottles they look for in their neighbours box.

I mean, really, are people who buy expensive scotches and bottles of Dom Perignon going to go out of their way to get their $.10 or $.20 back?